Tim Worstall

In his ruling, Mr Justice Mostyn said he was lifting the injunction “because the emphasis should be on transparency” in the courts. He added: “Mr Booker is perfectly entitled to be as rude as he wants about anybody he wants. That is what freedom of speech is about.” Quite.

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I’ve got Sky News on the TV at the moment and have just heard the phone conversations between Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce. I think it is scandalous that they have been made public. I almost felt dirty listening to them. I’m not sure what is proved by their release. Indeed, why have they been [...]

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Police chiefs have admitted that a second undercover unit stole the identities of dead children as recently as the late 1990s in a series of operations to infiltrate political activists. Yes, obviously you can in the colloquial sense. But can you in a legal one? I can see that you can misuse one. I can [...]

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Perverting the course of justice is a crime. The sentencing guidelines are here. Pleading guilty will reduce the sentence. Having stoutly insisted upon innocence before that will increase it. Note that sentences are expected to be consecutive, not concurrent, and there should be two, one for the offence and one for the perversion. Sentences are [...]

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Chris Grayling said the Government should not always be paying for the most senior QCs to defend suspected criminals when cheaper junior lawyers could do the job just as well. Speaking on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme, he said the £1 billion legal aid bill spent on criminal cases is too high when budgets are [...]

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Married lawyer, 58, ‘had affair with divorce client then billed her for times they had sex’ It’s not unknown for divorce lawyers to shag their clients. Common enough that I’ve seen it used as a running joke in a certain style of American legal novel. But to charge the client (or, as is more likely, [...]

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Former chief justice Tun Zaki Azmi said “like it or not, it is the duty of lawyers to uphold justice”. “As a practising lawyer, you have to distinguish between your personal or public emotions and politics,” he said. “You cannot assume the accused is guilty and should not get a fair defence.” Zaki said lawyers [...]

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I do hope, very much, that that is true. I certainly believe that directing an Anglo-Saxonism at men and women who have heard if often enough (and in my limited experience of drinking with coppers before one nicked my girlfriend they say it often enough) might be offensive but it’s not an offence. But could [...]

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Lawyers for Lord McAlpine are demanding that ITV pays more in libel damages than the BBC over false claims linking him to child sex abuse. The broadcaster has been given until this afternoon to respond to a demand to pay damages to the former Conservative Party treasurer. He accepted £185,000 plus costs from the BBC [...]

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A British Transport Police spokeswoman said: “BTP officers were called to the railway line in Aston Magna, Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire, on Friday, 19 October following a report of a man being struck by a train. “BTP and Gloucestershire Constabulary officers attended the incident, which was reported to BTP at 12.20pm and is currently being [...]

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Supporters of Julian Assange have launched an legal bid to recover the £140,000 cash they put up in bail money which was forefeit when the WikiLeaks founder sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy. The group – which includes two members of the British aristocracy, a Nobel Prize winner and an academic – told a court [...]

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The Ministry of Justice hopes it will help Britain become the “largest specialist centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation anywhere in the world” and on the face of it, there seems little to object to in that. I have many criticisms of the judiciary, but I have never entertained the notion [...]

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A father who faces being restricted from seeing his daughter after an unidentified woman made sexual abuse claims against him has won the right to be told the name of his accuser. Three Court of Appeal judges also said social workers must disclose the identity of the woman despite her refusal to be named. The [...]

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Apple scored a major legal victory last night after a US jury found arch rival Samsung violated patents used in the iPhone and ordered the South Korean company to pay $1.05bn (£664bn) in damages. Million, billion….still a stunning verdict though.

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Not these problems, of remand prisoners not being treated as they should be. That’s bad, but not my point. I do know why remand exists: flight or witness nobbling possibilities. But the end result is, and always will be, that some who are subsequently found not guilty end up serving jail sentences. The process itself [...]

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There are better legal minds around here than mine but: But they will also ask for a writ of habeas corpus freeing him from custody. The common law procedure developed in medieval times and is Latin for “you may have the body”. Umm, doesn’t it mean “we have the body” or perhaps “here is the [...]

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Mr Lisitsin was approached by Alexander Shadrin and his company Eco3 Capital to provide funding for the deal. The Russian businessmen knew each other through their membership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Mr Lisitsin backed the scheme on the understanding he would provide £2m as equity to help buy the land for £12.3m. Unbeknown to [...]

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And dear God it’s a mess. One would hope that his courtroom arguments are better than this otherwise Julian is going inside for a long time. Sweden routinely imposes severe restrictions on suspects held on remand. Pre-trial, suspects are often held in detention, or even in isolation. This treatment is unnecessary and humiliating and thwarts [...]

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is seeking political asylum at Ecuador’s London embassy. This is something I’ve really never understood. For the US to extradite him from the UK would be easier than extraditing him from Sweden. For the UK/US extradition treaty is pretty simple isn’t it? We’d like him, here, have him? The NatWest bankers, [...]

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Oh my God. Vicky Price’s defence gets even better: The defence is contained in section 47 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925:[1] “ Any presumption of law that an offence committed by a wife in the presence of her husband is committed under the coercion of the husband is hereby abolished, but on a charge [...]

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